Betty Boop's Bebop
Because I'm a cartoon airhead, people think it's a picnic
down on these mean streets. Sure, my skirt's short, but it's a crime,
fellows, how you give a frail the slip, leave her simmering,
hot and bothered. I have feelings, cardboard, but bordering on ennui,
just this side of tristesse. I may not be human, but I can kick
like one and bite and pinch, too. Don't forget, mister, I'm
not just a bimbo with a helium voice. I'm no rococo
parvenu pillhead. I've read your Rilke, your Montesquieu.
Really, I'm not as dumb as I look. Or maybe I am. Less
tries to be more, but ends up being nothing. My last beau
vetoed the philosophy of religion class in favor of pre-law,
exactly why I don't know, but I'm getting a glimmer. Stay
zany, the cartoonists tell me, and next year you'll play Cinderella.
Ganymede's Dream of Rosalind
Girlfriend, I am the boyfriend you never had—honeysuckle mouth,
indigent eyes, no rough Barbary beard when kissing me. Popinjay,
keep me in your little chest, nestle me in your cosy love hotel,
my mouthful of tangy violets, my pumpkin raviolo, my spoon
of crushed moonlight in June. On your breast let me sup,
quaff the nectar of your sweet quim, trim repository of dear
succulence. Only touch my cheek with your hand, and let
us again meet as we did that first time in Act II, Scene IV
when we ran away to the Forest of Arden. Rough sphinx,
you know my heart, because it's yours, too, and quartz,
altogether transparent stone. I yearn for you as a crab
craves the wet sand, a wildebeest the vast savannah, a toad
every mudhole and mossy shelf. Forget Orlando. I'll marry myself.
Karen, David, and I Stop across the Street from the Pitti Palace
In questi pressi fra il 1868 e il 1869 Fedor Mihailovic Dostoevskij compì il romanzo L'Idiota
Knocking around after dinner at Alla Vecchia Bettola in the cool
Mediterranean evening, we are joined by Prince Myshkin,
of all people, because a plaque above a little paper shop
(quoted in the epigraph of this poem) tells us he was created here, or
so it says. Writers are such liars, and I should know. Fact:
until this moment I'd forgotten about the prince. It's like the TV
Western you watched with such rapture as a kid while eating a bowl of Trix;
you see a raccoon and suddenly remember the Lone Ranger's mask. Jeez,
and I loved Tonto. Hi-yo, Silver, I'm such a stale piece of crumb
cake, because during the dark night of 1974, Myshkin held my hand,
even though I was more like a shipwreck than a woman—mute, deaf,
gnawing on my own heart as if it were meat, your words a match
I lit to find this place—forever in your debt, Fedor Mihailovic Dostoevskij.
Nietzsche Explains the Übermensch to Lois Lane
No, no, no, no—he doesn't even have nerves of steel. No
point asking him to save you, ma'am, he's more likely to rescue
rain from the street. Born on your block, not Krypton, he's
terror with a capital T, the beautiful mind you
vain dames can't see for the mascara on your lashes. You saw
exactly nothing when you clapped eyes on him, a nerdy
zip, not even head of the class, just skulking in the back, a
brilliant light in a room full of blind men. But when he rises, havoc
descends on the world, lightning storms blister the earth, for he
fears nothing, feels nothing, sees everything. From the beginning
he's been a juggernaut, crushing everything in his path, from the Hindi
Jagannath, Lord of the World, a guise of the god Vishnu. A dark
Lex Luthor was more what I was thinking of than Superman, ma'am.
Zeus, It's Your Leda, Sweetie Pie
Zip up your toga, thunder thighs, that's Hera
barking like Cerberus on amphetamines. I was a skeptic,
don't you know, but you've got the equipment, as the
frigging king of the gods should. All the mortal gals are agog,
hinting for an invite to our next divine date, as if I
jump in your Caddy and we race toward a three-star snack,
lightning bolts setting the highway ablaze miles ahead. I'm
nervous about your wife. She blinded Tiresias, and Apollo
plays possum when she's around. Zeus, that's your cue—
reassure me. Don't think I want to move to Mt. Olympus.
Those relics are a snooze. Athena, there's dust on her tutu,
Venus's, too, so get a move on, or my Helen will wow
exactly no one and his horse. Let's dillydally, Ding-Dong Daddy.